Thoughts from a liberal who isn't the least bit leftist

Main menu

Post navigation

One of the things that still seems unusual to me in this Internet connected world is that I have friends I have never met in person. Robert Bruce Thompson was one of those friends. I didn’t always agree with what he said, but he always made me think. In October of last year, he started having health problems, which lead to heart surgery in November. He passed away yesterday in a rehab facility.

He wrote several books and had a blog where a number of my online friends hang out. He and his wife also have an online business which sells science kits. I will miss having his blog to read every day.

If you used a nom de keyboard at RBT’s blog, please feel free to use the same one here, so I will know you are here.

I like capitalism and free markets. Capitalism and free markets always work better that socialism. I don’t approve of prostitution or the sale and use of illegal drugs, but the government is going to fail to control them every time. Prostitutes and drug dealers make money every time they don’t get caught. Police don’t make more money every time they catch a crook. Also in the areas where prostitution and drug dealing thrive, the police are too busy dealing with violent crime.

In the past few years I have met two boys who are growing into young men. I’ll call them Billy and Bobby. Other than the fact that both are white male Americans, they have very little in common. Billy’s mother and father never married and never got any post high school education or training. Bobby’s parents both finished four year college degrees and got married before his was conceived. The bleeding heart liberals would tell us that it’s not fair that Bobby’s future is so much brighter than Billy’s. They are determined to fix this problem. This is the real purpose behind No Child Left Behind, or as it should more accurately be called No Child Gets Ahead.

I am not happy with the fact that Billy’s future is so much bleaker than Bobby’s. The good news is that since we met, Billy now has a stepdad who is a positive male role model. He has also moved from a failing inner city public school to a mediocre small town school district. Despite these things, Billy still faces a bleak future. I’ve tried to think of ideas to help Billy but I haven’t come up with any.

Bobby’s situation isn’t perfect either, because his parents have faced financial setbacks. which have been made worse by poor financial decisions. Bobby is more than two years younger than Billy, but he’s more mature and has achieved academic progress that Billy never will.

I don’t like this state of affairs. However I can’t fix the problem. However I’m not going to withhold help from Bobby because it will increase the gap between him and Billy. I’m going to do what I can to help both of them.

The purpose of Common Core is to fix this problem and I do not approve. I believe the purpose of Common Core is to prevent people like Billy’s parents from helping with his math homework, thereby having the effect of reducing the academic gap between the two. It sucks that Billy may be an orderly for his whole life, but if that is the case, we gain nothing by holding back Bobby’s academic progress.

Update: Everyone who is complaining about ‘white privilege’ is complaining about those things that Bobby has, but Billy doesn’t. Calling it white privilege clearly misses the point. Billy and Bobby are both white. It isn’t white privilege, it’s middle class privilege.

I have decided to make some resolutions for 2016. I am going to personally set specific goals, but that list will remain private. First, my goal is to be healthier than I was in 2015. This means eating less stuff that I know isn’t good for me, a little more that is good for me, and exercising more. Second, I choose to give more of my time and money in 2016 than I did in 2015. Finally I want to make a little more money in 2016 and invest a higher percentage of it than I did in 2015.

Ed Driscoll linked to a post published and now retracted by the web site Gawker which outed someone who allegedly attempted to pay $2500 to solicit a gay porn star.

Which prompted me to look up the term gawker in the dictionary. The link is the first one returned by Google when I searched for the phrase gawker dicitionary definition.

This has sparked an online debate between various people at Gawker about whether they should have published the article or not, and whether once they published it, they should have retracted it or not. One would think they should have this discussion before publishing something, but what do you expect from a bunch of gawkers?

But what should I expect from a site with such obvious disregard for its readers?

Condoleezza Rice and Jenny Oaks Baker have done an instrumental performance of Amazing Grace. There is a YouTube video available or you can buy it on iTunes. The proceeds go to benefit Wounded Warrior Project. The only reason I haven’t bought it is that I really don’t like iTunes. I hope they decide to make it available on Amazon so I can buy it and play it on my devices that don’t support iTunes.

I completely and totally support the free exercise of religion as defined by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. If you want to face Mecca and pray five times a day I have no problem with that. However if your religion says it’s OK to commit violence against innocent people and you enjoy it, then I believe the First Amendment doesn’t cover that. The kinds of things described by David French in this article are blatantly unacceptable to me.

I am not going to start drawing pictures of Mohamed, but I support Pamela Geller. I support Martin Scorsese’s First Amendment right to make the film The Last Temptation of Christ. As a Christian, I choose not to view it. If we don’t protect offensive speech, then free speech means nothing. Muslims have every right to criticize Pamela Geller’s actions. We cannot afford to wait for things to get as they are in other countries. Should we wait until Muslims start burning churches to the ground? I say the answer is no.

The heart of my political agenda is that I want my daughter to grow up in a world where she can use the talents which God has given her. I have thus far underutilized the talents that God has given me.

This is going to sound contradictory, but I don’t think it is. I want to teach her to be strong and independent. I also want her to find a man who is her equal, who will be a partner with her in life. I want her to be happy regardless of whether she finds such a man or not, but I believe she will be happier if she finds such a man. I want her to find a man who needs her as much as she needs him.

I am returning to post a link to a Rolling Stone article that is almost two years old. It was written by Michael Hastings, a journalist who has been dead for almost a year. Yet it couldn’t be more timely. It is a well written article about Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier that we traded five Taliban leaders to get back. I’m not going to say what I believe about this, because I haven’t had a chance to read the entire article. So go read it and make up your own mind. I intend to do the same once I get a chance.

I just read this article by Juan Williams about the war on Christians in other parts of the world. I frequently disagree with Mr. Williams, but I completely agree with this article. There are parts of the world today where simply being a Christian places your life in danger. That we are debating about the “War on Christmas” in our country while remaining silent about the fate of those in other countries who are facing death for being Christians is absurd. Thanks to Ed Morrissey for bringing the article to my attention.